Carlsen with the Sinquefield Cup, with Jeanne & Rex Sinquefield in the background. Photo Cathy Rogers

(1) Chess is a game
for two players with 32 pieces, 64 squares and in the end Carlsen wins

This paraphrase of Gary
Lineker's famous comment about soccer
has also been applied to Garry Kasparov but now fits Carlsen perfectly.

The Norwegian has won
six of his past nine tournaments, and in the remaining three he finished just
half a point from first place.

(2) Jeanne
Sinquefield was wrong

At the closing dinner,
Jeanne Sinquefeld, the co-patron of the Sinquefield Cup along with
her husband Rex, admitted, "I let my husband play chess because I knew it
couldn't be expensive!"

With tournament prizes
of $70,000 for the winner, $20,000 for last place, plus appearance fees, hotel
bookings and other costs, the Sinquefield Cup would have cost more than the
average golf amateur spends on his or her hobby in a lifetime!

Aronian had been
pressing for the entire game and only a few moves earlier (when Black had a
rook on d2) Carlsen had been moving his king back and forth. After his last
move, 47...Kb7, Aronian offered Carlsen a draw, a result which would have
netted Carlsen first place outright and the $70,000 first prize without risk.
(A loss would have thrown Carlsen into a three-way tie for first place with
Aronian and Nakamura.)

Yet Carlsen declined
the offer without much thought - a decision which caused Ashley in his internet
commentary to suggest that he had never seen a similar act of bravery before.

Carlsen and Aronian in the final round of the Sinquefield Cup, Photo Cathy Rogers

After the game, which
Carlsen won 23 moves later, Aronian explained that he never expected his
opponent to accept, saying "This is chess, it's not about money, it's
about objectivity." If you stand better, you have an obligation to
yourself and to the game of chess to make the maximum out of the position.

(4) If you invite
the right players, even a four player tournament will provide plenty of
entertainment

Four players
tournaments are always a risky proposition; if one or both games are boring
and/or short then fans feel ripped off. The Sinquefield Cup had a 30 move rule
- no agreed draws before move 30 but that is no insurance against dull games.

Fortunately all four
players displayed the one characteristic you need to have a successful four-player event - fearlessness.
Even the lowest rated player in the field, Gata Kamsky, did not try to shut his
opponents down and in a parallel universe at least one of the four attacks he
generated might have crashed through and moved Kamsky out of the tournament
cellar.

Kamsky's last move,
27...Qf6!, threatens to blow open the position with 28..h4, and it took some
brave defence by Aronian to survive.
28.Nxh5!
"I thought that
28.Rb3 was a bit passive," said Aronian."I knew that 28.Nxh5 was dangerous but
it either works or it doesn't."28...Qh6
28...Qh8 29.Nf4 Bc3
wins the exchange, but after 30.Qe2! Bxe1 31.Bxf5! Black is the player who must
be careful.
29.Nf4 Rd7 30.Nd5
Rh7 31.Kf1 Qh1+ 32.Ke2 Qxg2 33.Rg1!
Somehow White can
survive Black's attack and the game ended in a draw after33...Qf3+ 34.Kf1
Kg7 35.Qd1 Bxd5 36.Qxd5 Qxd5 37.cxd5 Kf6 38.Kg2 Rfh8 39.Rh1 Rxh1 40.Rxh1 Rxh1
41.Kxh1 c4 42.Kg2 Bb2 43.Kf1 Ke5 44.Ke2 ½-½

(5) Magnus Carlsen
wins tournaments even when not in top form
Having not played
since the Tal Memorial in Moscow in June, Carlsen was expected to be a little
rusty and at the final press conference Carlsen expressed general satisfaction
with his form. However even when rusty one does not expect the top rated player
in the world to find plans such as....

36...Be7
Carlsen is a pawn up
for nothing but now starts a series of bishop moves which would be baffling
even if Black did not have a forced win with 36...Nxb2 37.Rxb2 Ba3 38.Rc2 Rd2.
37.Nxd3 Rxd3+
38.Kg2 Bc5 39.Rc1 Rd2 40.Rc2 Rxe2+ 41.Rxe2 Rd3 42.Rc2 Bd6 43.Bc1 Be7

Rex Sinquefield
expressed his hope that one day Saint Louis would be spoken of in similar terms
to Linares or Wijk aan Zee, as a traditional chess venue. Given the reactions
of the players to their treatment and conditions in Saint Louis, all will be
happy to return to Missouri, though exactly how the tournament could improve
from its first edition, without hiring Busch Stadium III to better accommodate
the spectators, is hard to imagine.

(7) Hikaru Nakamura
looks like a top 5 player

GM Hikaru Nakamura, Photo Cathy Rogers

Nakamura led Carlsen
for the first half of the tournament and had no trouble in either game against
the world number one. One bad game against Aronian apart, Nakamura took
controlled risks and stayed calm when matters threatened to get out of hand in
both games against Kamsky.

(8) US Chess fans
will pay to watch chess

Charging $15 for a
spectator ticket to a chess tournament was risky, and the organizers admitted
before the first round that they had no idea how many people would turn up at
the Saint Louis Chess Club, rather than watch the games at home on the
internet.

They need not have
worried. The crowds grew day by day until the Nakamura-Carlsen fifth round game
on the Saturday saw both commentary rooms overflowing and the excess filling
Lester's Restaurant, watching the internet commentary on television screens around
the sports bar.

200+ paying customers
on a single day is not yet London Classic territory but exceeds the spectator
numbers seen in the past at high level tournaments like Linares and, more
importantly, created a buzz around the venue which would have positively
affected the players' motivation.

(9) Anand will be
the underdog at the World Championship match in November

Carlsen, in modest
form at Saint Louis, performed at a 2966 level. Enough said.

(10) Saint Louis
has one of the best chess clubs in the world

A three story chess
club in a trendy locale with 900 members, a Grandmaster-in-Residence and a Hall of
Fame across the road is hard to beat.
Add to that an outreach program which covers more than 100 schools and being
the venue for multiple high level events, and even Moscow Chess Club -
especially Moscow Chess Club - would be jealous. That such a club has turned up
in Saint Louis, rather than one of the big cities on the coast, is thanks to
the Sinquefields.